Red Ball is a simple game. Someone (with opposable thumbs) throws the ball and Lucy runs madly after it and brings it back. And repeat.
Lucy loves playing ball more than anything (rawhide chews and rolling on dead animals a close 2nd and 3rd). She can do it for hours, with periodic trips to our faux creek to cool off.
As we play this game, I wonder if there’s anything in my life with such a high joy-to-effort ratio. Nothing comes immediately to mind. Except Red Ball.
“The Log Cabin was famous for its barbecue sandwiches and curb-service beer. You simply pulled into the pot-holed parking lot surrounding the tiny building… tooted your horn… and a waitress could come out to the car and take your order. If it was dark enough or the waitress was in a good mood… it was possible to buy a beer before reaching legal drinking age. I have no idea what kind of license allowed them to do business this way.”
Earlier this year, Barb attended an event for President Obama in St. Louis. I’m pretty sure you only got a hug if you wrote a check but it’s still a nice picture.
I’m not thrilled with everything our president has done (or not done) but if I were, someone else would be pissed, so…
I wish him well.
My friend Henry has started to play with video. This is his bird feeder from earlier today. A male Baltimore Oriole and a male Orchard Oriole feast on some grape jelly. With cameo appearacnes by a Ruby-throated Hummingbird.
I believe Henry shot this on his DSLR camera and it’s mighty easy to see the difference between this and video from my little Casio. Let’s hope Henry keeps making movies.
All I know about Dennis Forbis is he is a nice man. A patient man. A forgiving man. We workout at the same fitness center and he always remembers my name. And I seem to have some sort of mental block that prevents me from remembering his. Once or twice is embarrassing. Half a dozen times is mortifying.
So tonight I interrupted his workout to snap this photo and I’m posting it here in an effort to burn Dennis’ image and name into my brain. I’m even giving Dennis his own tag: Nice Man.
Dennis, if you’re reading this, let’s have a beer. I want to know your lift story. I want vivid details that I can never forget.
One of my mother’s many talents was shorthand transcription. A skill she used during her early working career. In those ancient times, people would dictate a memo or a letter and mom would write it down using something called Gregg shorthand.
I assume she took her “steno pad” back to her desk where she’d roll some typing paper and carbon sheets into the old manual typewriter and bang out a few copies which, I assume, got marked up with corrections, and she’d do it again.
I was reminded of this painful process recently when I heard Barb dictating a memo on her iPhone using Dragon Dictation. I’m just not sure how it gets much easier (but it will).
In a few years we’ll look at our huge 3-ring binders and drawers full of paper and shake our heads in wonder. But some folks just have to hold the paper in their hands. The numbers/words are just less real if not printed. One wonders of the iPad and similar future devices (digital paper) will change this.
One of my next projects is to convert the few remaining paper artifacts in my desk to PDF. I think I can get pretty close to paperless in my work life. I’m close.
Speaking of paperless…
I’m nearly finished with my first ebook. It was a very good experience. My beloved paper books will undoubetedly go the way of my vinyl LPs. Alas.
My friend and colleague Bob Priddy received some much deserved recognition at the opening session of the the Radio Television Digital News Assn/National Assn of Broadcasters annual meeting.
Bob, a 27-year member of the RTDNA board, is stepping down this year and they gave him not one, but TWO awards. The John Hogan Award, named for the founder of RTDNA, is given for distinguished service to the organization. The second award, the newly introduced Bob Priddy award, was presented to Priddy and will now be given to board members who exemplify Priddy’s distinguished and consistent service to RTDNA.
Bob is probably the best reporter I’ve ever met. More importantly, he is one of the best people I have ever met.
Three years ago I helped my friend LeAnn McCarthy set up a blog to help with her communications efforts as Public Information Officer for the Missouri Gaming Commission.
Last week I sat down with LeAnn to see how the blog was working out. She talked about her target audience(s); content; response (internal and external) and other social media tools.
